I see, I was looking for something less obvious and passed over the part where the Huffpost aggragate is not 37%. I took it for granted that the data was being presented relatively straightforwardly, as an aggregate. I didn't realize that it was specifically the Gallup poll with... huge variance.

Except that the "shareholders" in this scenario are American citizens. That's where the business/government analogy differs.

That is assuming, of course that he's actually interested in being seen as a historically successful president and not solely running a pro-corporate long con (which he is, almost certainly also going). From what I've seen, he seems to care deeply about public perception. Being the least respected president in history will undoubtedly impact his incredibly fragile ego.

Yes, it is the approval rate that matters, not the disapproval rate. The approval people are the ones who voted for him and which the republicans need to keep happy. If grump loses them, then those republicans will feel free to turn against him.

That said, this is only the 3rd time the approval has dropped below 40%, its never stayed below 40% for more than a day. But the last two times it dropped below 40% donald grump came out with a big noisy distraction. This time he hasn't been able to pull that off. We'll see in a few hours if the sub-40 level persists for a second day - if it does, that will be a first. Still just a babystep though.

That's also BushII's approval rating after years of pointless war, the country on the brink of actual depression, and miscellaneous other failures. It was wobbling between 25% and 30% for the last few months.

So, yea, Trump would have to make some kind of special effort to break through that.

This. Because somewhere there are people who seem to think he is doing a good job,

The people who think that are uninformed, sometimes by their own admission. They don't follow the news, they get tidbits from other, like-minded people. "Did you hear that Trump saved thousands of jobs at Carrier?" "Trump is banning Muslims, just like he said he would." "Trump is about to cancel Obamacare." "Obama is spying on Trump." "Trump has done more in his first two months than any other president, ever."

You can't tell these people anything. We can only hope there aren't enough of them.